Why Wine tasting isn’t scary

In September my parents moved from their home of 15 years in France to the Province of Cuneo in the Italian region Piedmont; luckily for me, they are now just over 4 hours away from where I live (ask me in a year if I still feel lucky!) On one of our more recent visits we decided to do a tasting of some of the wines that this region is so famous for. In the past I always thought that wine tasting was a little intimidating, maybe a bit boring.. I kind of had this stereotypical impression of bigwigs tasting expensive wines and spitting it out into a bucket, but thats really not the case.

I mean, think about how many different vineyards there are in the world, and then how many different wines each vineyard produces, its pretty much impossible to experience every wine, and you might never discover your favourite, on the other hand, the vineyards need to showcase their product to as many people as possible otherwise no one will buy it and no one will know how good it is! I friggin love wine, my previous favourite being a 2.79chf bottle of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo from Lidl (not even a little bit ashamed!)

In October We decided to book a tour of the winery and former home of Luigi Einaudi, (click here!) who was actually the president of the Italian Republic between 1948 and 1955. The building is absolutely beautiful (the perfect location for a wedding! Whilst waiting for others to arrive for the tour, we took a look around..

Our tour started and we were shown down to a creepy cellar full of barrels of wine, you learn that the wine starts fermenting in tanks of steel with a computer controlled pump, it then matures in barrels made from French oak and then the ageing is completed in bottles. We learnt that the cellar is kept dark and cold to reduce the visual and heat impact on the wine, allowing it to do its thing naturally.

After the cellar we checked out the bottling room where they had all sorts of big machines that cleaned, labelled and filled the bottles. There was stacks of packaged wine in the corner ready for delivery, addressed to countries all over the world!

Its actually really interesting to see how much goes into making the wine, I would definitely recommend doing a tour of the vineyard as well as a tasting for your first time!

We tried three wines in total, based on the experts recommendations and then you can buy whichever you like. I even bought a box of 6 wine glasses because they were so nice!

The second tasting we booked was at the Abbona Winery in Dogliani (www.abbona.com/en/).We’d had some of their wine at a restaurant so we decided to buy some bottles for Christmas and of course, taste some others! This time we were greeted by the granddaughter of Celso Abbona, who, with his father Marziano Abbona worked hard to cultivate their vineyards and create delicious Dolcetto wines. My new favourite red wine is the Papa Celso from this winery, its so fruity and full bodied! We bought a case of Papa Celso, San Luigi and their incredible Metodo Classico Brut – because everybody needs a glass of sparkly!

Both of these experiences have been so interesting and inspiring that I will definitely keep going to wine tastings and discovering new wines. Each vineyard has its own story and its so magical to be able to use all of your senses to discover the journey of the wines and the families and hard work behind them.

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About Me

Hello and thanks for stopping by! I'm Yasmin, a British Designer currently living in Switzerland and exploring the world! I like to write about my travels, design projects and other things that tickle my fancy!